The National Cyber Security Centre

The NCSC’s ‘Protective Domain Name Service for Schools’ has been scaled up to protect various organisations. The PDNS for schools is a service provided by the NCSC designed to protect schools from a plethora of cyber security threats. 

Why now? 

The NCSC successfully tested and released the first rollout of the PDNS last year, and it recently announced that it will incorporate schools. 

The statistics around cyber threats facing schools highlight the growing need for more to be done to support schools and protect their staff and student data. 

The NCSC announced the rollout by saying, "Building on our recently announced partnership with Cloudflare and Accenture, the NCSC is offering ‘PDNS for Schools’ free of charge to a wider range of organisations. This will mean more schools—regardless of their resources—can now benefit from enhanced cyber resilience."

Who can use it?

1️⃣ Local authorities or eligible public sector networks from the devolved administrations of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) that provide DNS to their schools.

2️⃣ Local authorities in England that provide DNS to their maintained schools.

3️⃣ School internet service providers in England who manage school DNS services and have a wide reach into the school sector.

4️⃣ Multi-Academy Trusts, academies, or independent schools without DNS from any providers above can implement the ‘PDNS for Schools’ service.

What does it do?

The PDNS helps prevent malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, and other online threats from ever reaching school networks and intranets. "It complements (but does not replace) the safeguarding filtering measures that schools should already have in place."

If you're interested

"If the above list includes your organisation, you can sign up for ‘PDNS for Schools’ by asking your DNS provider to register for PDNS through MyNCSC. If you are unsure who your DNS provider is, please ask whoever manages your school's IT or internet connection to check whether your DNS provider is eligible for the service.

‘PDNS for Schools’ is part of a wider cyber security offer of guidance and tools the NCSC has provided so schools can focus on what they do best: educating pupils. For more additional information about the service, please visit our PDNS web pages."